


Uncertainty Principles

by holyfant



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Other, The Sign of Three Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 03:42:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holyfant/pseuds/holyfant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You cannot observe something without changing it. Or: Sherlock and Molly have a drink while John and Mary are away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uncertainty Principles

**Author's Note:**

> Just trying to cope until HLV. *pukes a little* Completely un-looked at by anyone but me.

She opened the door only after he rang the bell a third time – _in the shower_ , Sherlock thought, then frowned at the inanity of the deduction.

 

“Oh, hi,” Molly said, eyes wide, a hand clasped around the flaps of her dressing gown. Strands of her wet hair were plastered against her forehead. “I didn't – I was just –” She didn't finish her sentence. For a long moment, Sherlock simply stood on the doorstep, watching her, the way she was rosy and blushing from the shower.

 

“Er,” she said. Another moment passed. “Can I... do you want to come in?”

 

“I do,” he said, and waited for her to step aside.

 

Her kitchen was small and cluttered; there was left-over chicken breast on a plate on the counter, and three cigarettes in a a teacup serving as an improvised ashtray.

 

“They're Tom's,” Molly said when he looked back at her, and smiled a little.

 

“Yes,” he agreed, and with an effort swallowed the rest of the unbidden words that tried to make their way to his mouth. _That was an effort, wasn't it?_ John said, amused, from his reclining seat on the beach. _Stop it_ , Sherlock thought, and John made himself disappear by pushing his sunglasses back up his shiny nose and turning back towards Mary.

 

“So,” Molly said, still holding the flaps of her dressing gown very tightly, “can I get you... a drink, or something?”

 

“I'll have some of the Chauvignon you opened earlier,” Sherlock said, and shrugged his coat off his shoulders.

 

She opened her mouth, then shut it again and made a little breathing kind of laugh. “All right.”

 

*

 

They sat in the couch together, she now dressed in a t-shirt that was clearly Tom's and pajama trousers. Her hair was drying in strands that were wavier than he was used to from her, and she gripped her wineglass with her entire palm against the surface of it – completely against etiquette, and it made Sherlock experience a very small thrill of joy to mirror her and imagine the way that Mycroft would look at both of them if he'd ever see this. For a while, they drank in silence. Despite Sherlock's attempts to keep him away, Toby kept pawing at Sherlock's thighs and trying to migrate from Molly's lap to Sherlock's.

 

“So,” Molly said when he held out his glass for a re-fill, and tipped the neck of the wine bottle against his glass far too forcefully. The clink made Sherlock smile momentarily. “When're John and Mary coming back, then?”

 

Sherlock's mouth folded back. “Five more days,” he said automatically, then blinked. Molly looked at him with a barely-there, soft expression. Sherlock took a large gulp of his wine and did not remember the way he had murmured, very quietly to John, _I am never ever drinking again_ as John's heavy and sleeping head dropped against his side in the police cell.

 

“Have they been in touch?” Molly asked. Merciful, she looked down at the bottle instead of at Sherlock.

 

“Far too often,” Sherlock said, “it's interfering with my work.” He tried to scowl.

 

“Enjoying it then?”

 

He studied her for a split second, then decided she was talking about Mary and John. “Imagine so,” he said, cautious. John, whose position on the balcony of his and Mary's hotel room made him look a little like he was floating upwards into the sky, looked down on Sherlock for a long moment, and then, softly, said: _oi. Open your eyes, you idiot._ Sherlock opened his eyes, and Molly was there again.

 

“I was going to watch a film,” Molly said. “Tom's working tonight.”

 

“Of course,” Sherlock said, and looked down at Toby, stealthy and hairy in his lap.

 

*

 

“I don't understand,” Sherlock said, scowling at the screen, where a woman was flatteringly crying and crushing a photograph of her and her rocky paramour in her shapely fingers. “How does anyone enjoy this?”

 

“Look, Sherlock, I dunno,” Molly said, and the way in which she fastened her eyes to Sherlock's was new: piqued, slightly annoyed, steady. “I just _do_. It's relaxing, and it's fun.”

 

“Hmm,” Sherlock said, and was very pointedly not reminded of John. He focused again on the screen. “I suppose there is something to say for it,” he said. Mary, holding onto John's hand, turned away from the market salesman she was haggling with towards Sherlock and raised an eyebrow at him. He shook his head and she pouted, turned away again, melted into a splash of sunlight. “I _said_ ,” he insisted. Toby kneaded his thigh with his paws, smeared his chin against the fabric of Sherlock's trousers. “I said – I suppose observing someone else's loneliness and having your own observed that way is –” He stopped.

 

There was a silence. The woman in the film was cutting her hair angrily, pretending to be alone, pretending not to be watched.

 

Molly didn't look away. “More wine?” she asked, holding the bottle up.

 

John and Mary, fingers touching over the off-white of the tablecloth, shoulders sunburnt to slightly different shades, lifted their glasses towards Sherlock. Smiling. They only disappeared slowly this time, as though the sun were setting over them.

 

“Why not,” Sherlock said to Molly, and held out his glass.

 

 


End file.
